Oh Rats!

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This post is as much a heads up that I may be out of the picture for a few days longer than normal. Harmonica Joe is coming to visit!

The Rat Pack (2 dogs, 2 cats and I) went on a photo mission last Sunday. The goal: come home with photos of pack rat nests. These critters are elusive unless you find them floating in a tub of water but their nests can normally be found everywhere out here in the desert. Not this Sunday however. The five of us hiked a half mile down the road but found nothing. I had one chance left and that was under the mammoth boulder right behind the barn, the very one which bested the Cat D8R last Fall.
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This is when I discovered that both ditzy Daisy and Brou love to have their photo taken. I squatted down on my haunches to take a photo of the rat nest filling the crevice under the boulder and both dogs immediately filled the view finder. The real target is between their feet.
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Above is what I was really after. You can see a tightly woven collection of twigs and debris to the left of Daisy's tail. This is your basic pack rat home.

As Slim will attest, pack rats do love to abscond with shiny items. He has yet to find the key to his Bobcat after laying it down on a salt block in his tack room. He disassembled the huge twig nest in one corner of the room but never found the key. Must have been a visiting pack rat who took the key home with him.

This is not just an impromptu desert nature tour here. I am going somewhere with all this so hold these thoughts and don't wander off on me, okay?
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I have been receiving some abuse lately for not exercising my truck. No one can accuse me of leaving my little carbon prints all over the place needlessly, that is for sure. Admittedly, the last time I used my truck was probably to chase a renegade cow off our pastures last summer. Now that I think of it, this mission is what prompted Mark to see if the truck still fired up last week - cow chasing!!!

From inside the Rat, I heard that loud tick, tick, tick and then nothing. Dead battery. Not good. But it's funny how some things that appear to be not good at the onset turn out to be blessings.

Mark's first natural inclination was to remove the battery and bring it over for a recharge. The next loud exclamation I heard was "Ohmigawd! Hey, you have to see this!" I got a premonition of what he had found and grabbed the cameras on the way out the door.
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Just as I had suspected! Some pack rat had decided that this long stationary truck would make an ideal home - off the ground and rain-proof. What a mess ... what a rat's nest!

While I am no where near as vehicle fussy as I used to be, I was completely aghast at what this ... this ... little ... creature ... had done to my lovely red Dakota!

Mark and I simultaneously exclaimed that it was a very good thing that the truck hadn't started up, what with all that dry compost to jam belts and ignite.
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While Mark trotted the battery over to the shed, I began grabbing handfuls of sage and chico brush out of the compartment. Who, I mean WHO would have thought that a pack rat would also drag in prickly pear cactus parts?!? I held my stinging hand up to the light to see the fine, hair-like needles which added to the fair-haired fuzz already there. Mark and I have had to deal with this misery before and I wasn't looking forward to myopically tweezing away at these needles, only to have them break off flush with the skin as usual. I cannot understand the nature of such a frail structure which is strong enough to penetrate calloused skin yet has absolutely no side-to-side strength. I suppose it is this quirky survival skill which makes them ever so memorable to anything which dares disturb them. But why a pack rat would be granted immunity to upholster his/her nest with them is even more of a mystery.
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I threw a pair of leather work gloves over to Mark and retreated to find the tweezers and work for the next half hour, using the long, hard rays of the afternoon sun as very necessary back-lighting.

Moral to this story? If you're not going to use a vehicle out here, at least start it up every couple of weeks and park it somewhere else - keeps the pack rats wondering where their perfect condo went. And DON'T leave your keys around!

Now remember, please, I might be gone longer than normal this week, okay?
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Home Cummins, Part 4

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Pre-Ramble, Current News : Touch wood ... I am free of that antlered albatross as of yesterday!!! Now that we have gone through our first drill on processing an elk, next year's plans will include jerky (for Bruno) and a run at smoked sausage, too. This year's very cautious attempt yielded steaks, BBQ slabs, fajita strips, stew cuts and ground meat. We spent some good bucks on a Bass Pro #8 (.35hp, by LEM) meat grinder and have no regrets whatsoever. When was the last time you opened up an appliance package and kept saying "Wow, this thing is WELL made!" as you pulled out each part? Lotsa stainless steel, genuine steel gears and even the castings are works of art. Pure machine lust ... goose bumps and shivers!
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Retrospect: Mid-September 2006

Apologies for the quick entry yesterday, ma cher La Phlegm, the words just piled up quicker than I thought might be tolerable for on-line reading if I had finished it up. So here is the finale:

The thought of being discovered in such an embarrassing state drove me to hop and waddle all gimpy-kneed to a small boulder for cover where I ducked down and waited. One more motor rev and then ... nothing but the breezy silence of the canyon again. By now, my knee was screeching but I thought "You're just waiting me out, aren't you? You dirty rotters ... eh-heh-heh, I can wait, too!" That lasted for all of two minutes as my knee ramped up the wailing again and I thought of the hordes of snakes and tarantulas who were probably taking advantage of the situation and sneaking up on me now. I minced my way back out to the road and continued on. Rounding the bend an eighth mile up the road, I realized that truck had taken a steep path up the mesa - all that squatus interruptus for nothing! Now I walked on with the priority of getting back into my pants and shoes. The road was still muddy so I guided each step to the driest section in hopes that the mud on my feet would eventually dry and fall away. I learned a lot about interpreting the appearances of a road surface that morning which would help with driving later but I wandered on for another mile before I would attempt donning my clothes again. I knew that any course grit in my socks and shoes would lame me long before I reached home.
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"The Roller Coaster"

My walk home started at the base of the far, bluish mesa. I would end up walking well beyond the lower left corner of this photo. That swath of road leading off the main road and up to the left is where the mystery truck disappeared. The roller coaster allows for some very enjoyable senior 'Bullitt' moments providing that you stop at the top of the first one to make sure that someone isn't doing the same thing coming the other way and that a road grader has covered over the foot deep run-off keyways at the bottom of each hill.

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As I began the 'roller coaster' (a tight series of five or six small alluvial hills between the mesa and the creek, see photo), a set of fresh coyote tracks joined me, running in the same direction towards home. My thoughts of Brou's safety loomed heavily as I recalled the communal coyote calls to a fresh kill. I would sigh with relief when the tracks vanished into the sage but worry again when two or more sets would rejoin me a quarter of a mile later. All were heading home towards the lone pup Brou as I was now.
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Finally, oh finally, I reached a spot where I could stand like a flamingo and slough the mud off my feet against the back of my calves and put the jeans back on without falling over. Another scrub-off against the jeans and I had my socks and shoes back on. Glorious! No more sharp little stones to snap me out of the thoughts I had occasion to get lost in and I could pick up the pace now.
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As I wondered about the mountain lion sightings of the year before, small game birds rose up and flew ahead of me, always some twenty yards ahead. I was taken by their quick flash of orange wing bottoms as they methodically leap-frogged ahead of me and I was grateful for their distracting company. I now longed for that initial glimpse of the Rat which lay a quarter mile beyond the Roller Coaster. My trek would end only a mile beyond that point.
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The last mile would begin well before the right side of the photo above. From there, it would be a fairly constant descent into our home piece of canyon, requiring much less huffing and puffing. You can see the wildly meandering broad band of our creek below it.

The coyote tracks now picked up in numbers as I descended into the chico flats at the left of that photo and all were still headed in the direction of home ... and a defenseless Brou. My heart sickened a little further and my pace picked up noticeably. I now hurried towards my last obstacle, the infamous 'Virgil Catcher', a deep bog of run-off which retains its moisture greedily long after the other run-off paths have calmed and dried. I gaged my path and skipped gingerly across the first half. Then my next few steps sunk into the ooze until my right shoe was sucked right off my foot, well behind my inertia. I had made it to the other side but was now pivoting clownishly and precariously on one remaining shoe. I gave in to defeat and returned for the hostage shoe. With both shoes now shrouded in as much mud as my spirit, I removed the muck-laden shoes and proceeded in my stocking feet. I was on a mission to find Brou so who cared if I wore out a pair of cotton socks.
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At the remaining quarter mile mark, I could see the barn and Rat and began calling out for Brou. With every response of silence, I quickened my steps and began calling louder. Only the silence of the canyon, save for a few shallow echoes, answered my calls. I tried to ignore my growing cringes of gloom.

I was nearly to the barn when a small and cowed auburn form appeared at the barn door and cautiously made its way towards me. "Oh, my Brooouuuu! You made it!"

My surging sheets of adrenaline left me as we trotted the last few yards to the Rat's porch. I collapsed on it's rough 2x4 planks and was smothered by Brou's joyful reunion kisses. Four miles of plodding suddenly became worth every foot, every worry and pang of misery within it.
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As I lay there immobilized in deep pools of relief and joy, I swore I heard another truck. Sure enough and so goes the story of my life again. Virgil swung into the driveway and endured my "So just where the H--- were you when I was four miles down the road from here anyway?" He grinned that big cat grin and laughed when I told him of my trek back in. Then he left to test the waters for Mark. Knowing he had a captive towing buddy on the other side, he charged across the running creek to Mark's side and said "Okay, I'll turn around and hit it again. Wait 'til I'm on the other side so that I can tow you out if necessary and then you hit it, too." A flawless run by both ensued and Mark was soon greeted by Brou's exuberant slurpy kisses as well, the brand new truck now parked proudly in front of the Rat.

Having a friend like Virgil in these far reaches of the gas field was a blessing beyond all blessings. I should never have expressed that sentiment to the anti-neighbor; it wouldn't be long before she would aid in his removal with her venomous hate-driven hissings. Sometimes you have to eventually learn the hard way to over-ride a long prevailing and abused trait of magnanimity.

It wasn't long before I decided that staying right here at the Rat rather than attempting outside trips was just fine with me. To read about previous adventures out of the canyon, click on the 'seldom leave' label and remember to read from the bottom up. Does make one wonder.

As I type, a new flurry of snow is obliterating our view of the far mesa. We're not done with winter just yet!
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Home Cummins, Part 3.

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You know the drill by now - scroll down and read Part 1 and then Part 2 if you haven't already or you will be completely lost.

Retrospect: Mid-September 2006
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We ignored the first hint of a cold dawn as it back-lit the condensate on the truck windows by burying our heads deeper into our light jackets. Trying to move sent a xylophone riff of pain down our cramped spines and out into our stiff limbs. Aside from letting in a blast of chilling air, a quick roll-down of the window made it clear that the creek was STILL running hard. It would be hours more before the sun warmed the canyon air around us or slowed the creek.

We stirred and felt obliged to be social when we heard two trucks draw near around 9AM. The two drivers stopped well short of us, trudged through the brush to inspect the creek and promptly left, purposefully avoiding any eye contact or acknowledgment. Unlike the well-end workers, we've found the pipeline company workers to be consistently aloof and occasionally a detriment (as noted in an earlier story of getting the Ram stuck in the creek). We suspect that there is no 'good neighbor policy' in place in these pipeline corporations.
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There was no way we could force a return to napping at this late stage of the morning so we had to make decisions. The kitty boys were safe inside the Rat but my concern for Brou was building furiously. When Mark volunteered to walk across the creek and head home, I declined. Nursing an old phobia about driving other people's vehicles, I declared that it would be me who walked home and that he would ferry the new truck across when the waters subsided.
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I scraped a good amount of muck off my shoes with a stout sage branch and placed them in a plastic shopping bag along with my socks. Since my straight-cut jeans would not roll up very far, they were placed in the bag on top of newspaper serving as a mud barrier. I marched resolutely down the slope to the creek, bag in hand, turning only once to announce "Okay, now if I fall down in the creek and you laugh ... well, you know ..." By the time I was on the far side and realizing that I was facing this walk alone, he had already returned to the truck and was deeply engrossed in his newspapers. Hmpphhh. Fine! I then looked down at the mud which had oozed up in quantity from between my toes - it would obviously be awhile before I could put my jeans and shoes back on. A great spectacle to behold; me, the great cross country adventurer, pushing on in my bare feet and underwear. "Did Lewis and Clark ever do this?" I wondered to myself.
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It was about a quarter of a mile into this trek that two things happened. The first was a nature call of the most pressing kind. Oh, surely NOT now - I'm barefooted with this gimpy knee and there is no sign of any suitable seating arrangement to aid in this suddenly urgent mission. Not wanting to tread into the brush in such a vulnerable state of dress, I trudged on for another hundred yards but succumbed to sheer desperation. I planted myself for business in an area barely off the road after surveying for snakes and tarantulas ... and so grateful for that section of newspaper in the plastic bag. The second thing to happen (of course - as you probably could have guessed) was the sudden roar of an approaching truck from up the road ahead. Great; I am unshod, in my underwear and in the middle of addressing a dump. Such would appear to be the story of my life at times.
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To be continued

This is consuming more words than I had planned so I'm cutting it short here to go back to the elk processing now. I am beginning to truly resent that beast, I really am. I'll be back and visiting as soon as I finish pounding that vile and taunting creature into submission, promise!!!

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Why I Now Seldom Leave The Canyon ... Part 3

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Retrospect: May 2006

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And so we continued to play among the stacks of full dimension lumber, this builder's dream land. The bright, hot weather and our concentration were interrupted by a number of events including a few brief pelting rains, a quick dust storm, a neighbor wanting a stump base for target practice and yet another neighbor wanting to use the phone to report a fire. It was then that Skeeter discovered that they no longer had either phone service or electricity. Under the circumstances, the drone of heavy prop-driven planes became more meaningful. These guppy-bellied planes had been drawn to the ever increasing smoke which I had noticed earlier. Before they flew away, they would circle and finally drop bright red/orange chemicals onto what was now an unmistakable forest fire. After a parching ten year drought, this event was nothing to ignore. Earl fired up the big fork-lift and quickly put our lumber on the trailer before noting that they needed to check on a relative's house right in the fire's path.

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We pulled the heavy trailer out onto the road and realized that we had no choice but follow the two lane highway right through the heart of the fire frenzy. It was a circus of insanity with emergency vehicles screaming past every minute or two and festive gawkers pulling off to the side of the road every few hundred yards. The town we had to pass through was being evacuated, pronto. A wide and heavy load on an unfamiliar trailer being pulled by a truck we were not 100% confident with, in the midst of complete mayhem - we were a little 'on edge', to say the least. Which one of these idiots would be the next to slam on the brakes to pull into a good viewing spot or pull out in front of us with our recent brake job still not tried to the fullest measure? Sure enough, the truck in front of us pulled off abruptly, causing Mark to swing out around him in avoidance. Just when both of us were on the verge of a stroke, an emergency vehicle siren screamed deafeningly to life behind us. Ratchet up the blood pressure another 50 or 60 points. Apparently, the truck in front of us had noticed the silent cop car behind us; the reason for his sudden pull off. Mark, as unhinged as I at this point, had not been looking in his rear view mirrors around the wide load for silent predators. Rather than pass us by as we found the first spot to pull over without capsizing the load into the deep ditches, the officer pulled in behind us. Realization hit us with a hammer blow. Great, Mark, you just cut off a cop, an undoubtedly angry one at that ... we are screwed, Buddy. The officer jumped out of his car and, with spittle flying, launched into the most impressive exercise using the 'f' word in every possible grammatical situation possible. He had covered nouns, pronouns, verbs, adverbs and more by the time he reached the cab. Mark, now much wiser with age, looked downwards and chose to utter a simple "I am VERY, VERY sorry", despite some arguable points such as the lack of siren use. I don't doubt from the man's beet-red face, language and gesturing that he could have leapt into a violent physical attack and thoroughly enjoyed it. I truly cannot recall seeing anyone, anyone, Barney Fife-ish hyper or not, acting quite that insanely angry. I subconsciously gave him a 10.9 performance score on a scale of 10.

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Whether it was Mark's complete lack of confrontation or seeing my own eyes-closed, ashen pallor is hard to say but he turned on his heels with another barrage of fluent 'f' words and laid a screaming strip of rubber past us without further official formalities. My, that was certainly the right way to encourage us to keep a calm and level head during an emergency. For the next ten miles, we weren't sure if we were going to have the big one or just plain throw up.

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It was a relief to finally see the big main highway again ... clear sailing on four lanes. Hallelujah - homeward bound without any stress now! Beyond the smoke, the sun was intently beaming again, the air and the pavement rippling with heat waves. Free from that nightmare at last!

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About ten minutes later, a small noise and a repetitive light thump crept in. Oh please ... no. We pulled over. Thankfully, it wasn't a flat ... yet. A large piece of one trailer tire tread had left us. No jack on the trailer, none on this truck. The nightmares and despair converged upon us again. Oh, why us and why now? We decided to limp the whole rig slowly to the next stop in hopes of assistance.

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That next stop turned out to be another zoo. The reservation was hosting a 4WD mud fest complete with rock bands. People and traffic everywhere. We limped the rig into a quiet area and looked around for any flotsam which we could drive the wheel of the first axle up on to in lieu of a jack. Parking lots are amazingly clean when you need to find a certain sized piece of junk and we were getting all the more discouraged now. While I went off in search of likely jack donors, Mark was befriended by a very, VERY inebriated Navajo. This tall and portly native rancher would intersperse genuinely well-intended offers of help with brief removals from the scene for public urination events. His brother-in-law, a young 'gangsta' wannabe, was not so gracious and relieved himself directly on our truck's tire. Rod Serling's theme song grew louder with the quickly lengthening shadows of the late afternoon. Another beautiful orange and gold sunset in the making ... but we could hardly give a damn at that point.

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After making the rounds of the security people and the maintenance people several times, I was finally pointed to a gentleman helping an old fart from Flagler Beach change his RV tire. The kindly Samaritan pointed out yet another jack in the back of his truck and off I went, treasure in hand. Mark was happy to have his current company diluted by my return and had that tire off and spare installed faster than an Indy pit crew. We returned the jack with intense gratitude and bade a respectful farewell to Mark's new long-lost best pal.

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Once again, we missed traveling back down the canyon in daylight. Was it now foolhardy to expect anything but? I made yet another heavy mental note about the joys of leaving the canyon.

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Current news:

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A heat wave last night of zero after two days of 15 degrees BELOW zero! Not that the well and pump will free up any time soon.

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Why I Now Seldom Leave The Canyon ... Part 2

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Retrospect: May 2006

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After that last unpleasant trip out of the canyon, it would be several more months before I would wish to try again. This new outing was a mission for wood, a very practical reason to override the memory of that last adventure. Virgil had since introduced us to Earl, a fellow who seemed interested in buying our big dualie truck. Even though we would be taking a 4 digit hit on it so soon after buying it, I was elated. These roads where single axle utility pick-ups reign with their deeply imprinted ruts was no place for a wide tracking truck. On one earlier occasion, knowing that Mark would be returning to the canyon with the dualie, I stopped repeatedly to clear off the small boulders that the single-axled boys had barely plowed between. Add in the taut suspension that danced and slammed to the cadence of the washboards and I was ready for a change. Earl was looking for a heavy duty hauling truck for his wife's horse trailer but didn't want to lay out that big a sum of cash. On the other hand, he operated a small sawmill ... and we would be needing wood, lots of it down the road.

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Virgil came to the rescue and lent us his large trailer, a well beaten but solid affair so we followed Earl's directions with a short cut through the reservation. The roads were rough but dry, the new scenery pleasing and, in little over an hour, we found ourselves back on pavement and heading to the small mountains that Earl calls home. Earl and his wife Skeeter came out to greet us with a warmth most people reserve for old friends and then gave us a tour around their idyllic homestead. A beautiful log home milled by his father, big boy toys everywhere, a Noah's Ark of animals at every turn. In the fenced yard, I noticed a whirling lapidary of fur with a bright orange patch emerging every now and then from the auburn and white patches. Unbeknownst to me then, Brou was part of that multi puppy tangle mauling a small orange kitten in playfully benign rough housing. His love of pestering and mouthing cats had already been set in stone.

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The big boy toy tour was as equally enjoyable. Earl had acquired all the right stuff to make a guy envious; BIG trucks, BIG loaders, BIG generators, BIG saw mill equipment. Then came the fun part of picking out stacks of wood from his collection. Skeeter was equally at home with the mill operation and tallied her tape measure calculations as we proceeded. About half way through this process, I noticed a cloud of slate gray smoke billowing up from the nearby mountain. With some unease, I asked "Uhm, is that normal, is someone burning garbage?". All being engrossed in our wood seeking mission, I was farted off without fanfare. But there are times when my observations should be heeded.

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To be continued.

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Why I Now Seldom Leave The Canyon ...

Retrospect: February 2006
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While Mark's weekly or often bi- and tri-weekly trips out of the canyon seem to go reasonably well, our joint trips have had some miserable results. As one neighbor said, "Sheesh ... it's like someone is trying to tell you to stay home." It has made both of us wonder at times.

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After we had addressed our priority survival needs, Mark took over the trips into town for supplies by himself and did a yeoman's job of it. In the interim, we had bought a second hand truck despite my long-standing disdain of any vehicle which we did not know the full provenance of. Yes, I regret not voicing those concerns at the time but Mark was quite taken with the beast and we were, after all, helping a kid make a new life by freeing him from a bank payment. I had a grinding sense of discomfort about the arrangement which I chose to override. Sometimes you only learn from experience and, in this case, it was to express a concern before the real rain falls upon everyone's parade. The beast shone less well in the light of day and, even if it had been what we expected, was simply not the right vehicle for our rather unique situation. It was a fairly handsome but generously dinged diesel one ton dualie already well over the 100,000 mark on the odometer. I should have said something but did not.

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At a neighbor's suggestion that we should take some R&R to ward off cabin fever, we decided to do some minor local stops and head up to Colorado for the remainder of the day ... this would be our big play time outing. The drive out of the canyon to pavement with the heavy duty suspension and dualies had every bump and rut reminding me of how much my back hurt on a good day. I was in severe physical agony by the time we reached pavement, Mark a little behind me in discomfort. But this was our big, exciting 'away time' together and we were both looking forward to it.

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We had barely been on pavement and considering the first local errands when the clouds began to spit out a little snow, the first of the season in fact. But it was light and non-threatening, hardly a reason to high tail it back to the canyon. What caught my attention in a far more disturbing way was a sound coming from the right front end of the truck. It ate at me for the next couple of traffic lights before I said something. Mark confirmed that he had heard the noise as well. It was a mild but uncomfortable and vague steel-on-steel noise. Given the rare occasion of us both being out of the canyon, we decided to proceed directly up to Colorado but pay attention to the noise.

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We eventually dropped down into Durango but, by now, we were both listening for the noise with a little more intensity as the roads presented hairpins at alarming inclines and descents. So far, so good - no further disturbing degradation in the mechanical noise - at least that we were willing to acknowledge. We were able to make several of the long anticipated stops but retreated to a motel before dark set in. It was marvelous to take a hot shower, dine on a Pepperoni Lover's pizza and watch a TV.

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In the morning, Mark went out to pick up more list items. When he returned, he announced "Remember that rasp/squeal from yesterday? Well, it's more of a crunch/grind this morning." The dampening bucket of water then fell on us both and we abandoned the remainder of our big outing stops in search of a repair shop. We spent the next several hours in a shop, only to learn that they didn't have the necessary parts on hand. Their branch back where we had come from would. In the meantime, the first snow storm of the season had moved in on Durango. The shop said that we could make it back but advised caution and judicious use of the brakes in the mountains. With the snow now coming down in blinding sheets, we retraced our route back, climbing up the snow-slick hairpins and fully remembering the precipitous drops just beyond their guard rails. Our first idyllic respite had turned into a teeth clenching anxiety fest.

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But we made it back to New Mexico and spent the remainder of the day waiting as the brakes were repaired - a sickeningly pricey combination of pads and entire rotor replacements. I had no complaints with their scope of work - the sound had certainly confirmed the worst of mechanical possibilities. And we were grateful that we were able to bumpty-bump our way back home before the snow could cut us off.

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On the return leg of his next supply run, Mark experienced nearly complete brake failure. The canyon roads are hardly flat-plane coaster roads and his trip was laced with deadly challenges. After some grousing and kneeling in the mud, I noticed that the bleeders on the rear calipers had not been touched in years and I was hopeful that the problem was a matter of trapped air in the system.

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Now here is a heartening tale of some human goodness still at large. When we told the shop manager of our circumstances and the danger of driving the brake-free truck any further, he took it upon himself to navigate the tricky roads out here after hours to attend to the problem. He checked and confirmed that his mechanics had not bled out the rear of the system but, after correcting that oversight, the system still did not come back up to pressure. We could tell that he dreaded telling us that the problem now likely rested in a failed master cylinder and I found no reason to question his conclusion. Our gas field friend,Virgil, drove back out on his weekend off, loaded the truck onto his personal trailer and brought it into town for us without hesitation. The shop manager gave us the part at nearly his cost and did what he could to make the bill more bearable. He was a very decent soul in every way and hopefully we can repay that rare kindness down the road. There are still good folks out there so take heart.

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That was Part 1 of the R&R Hades Chronicles (or "Why I seldom leave the canyon any more").

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Humor of the day (from the Tomato Man)

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I went to a bookstore and asked the saleswoman "Where's the self-help section?" She said that if she told me, it would defeat the whole purpose.

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